Read Only Version

This download will install a special read-only version of Family Historian 3 on your computer. It is intended to be of use to Family Historian users who wish to give their family tree files (‘GEDCOM’ files) to relatives and friends, and would like the relatives and friends to have a version of Family Historian to use for viewing and exploring these files.

Unlike the 30-Day Trial Version, this read-only version is not the latest version, and it is not fully-functioning. Also, you cannot simply purchase a licence and acquire a registration key to unlock it, as you can with the 30-Day Trial Version. However, the read-only version can be used indefinitely – it is not time-limited. The restrictions on it are:

Any changes you make to family tree data cannot be saved from one session to the next. If you click File > Save or File > Save As you will be informed that these commands have been disabled.

You cannot print out diagrams or reports, save diagrams to a file, save the results of queries to a file, or transfer data to other programs.

You cannot use the Internet Search Tool to search the Internet, and you cannot create websites or Family Tree CDs.

A few features (Merge/Compare, Queries, the All Relatives diagram) are further restricted in that they can only be used in files which contain 100 Individual records or fewer.

To use the demo version you must first install it by downloading the file ‘install_fh_demo_3.0.1.exe’ (9MB). Click the Download button below to download it to your PC. We recommend saving the file to ‘Desktop’. After saving, the installation program will appear on the screen desktop and you can double-click it to run it.

We do not recommend using the read only version of Family Historian with GEDCOM files if you wish the recipient to be able to view multimedia, as it is not suitable for this. A good alternative option in this case would be to generate a family tree CD or DVD.

Please note: You can install both the demo version and a full product version (including the download version) simultaneously on your PC. However, to avoid confusion, we recommend that you uninstall the demo version before installing other versions onto your computer.